Broadband Options?

[JonS]

Orange have just written to tell me that they are closing their dial up service in December. So I guess it's time for me to modernise! They are offering me 2mb download speeds and 2gb volume per month for about £12.
Is this reasonable value? Any recommendations on where the best deals can be found will be much appreciated.

Regards

Jon

[Madoobri]

Some info here (http://www.about-broadband.co.uk/all-packages.htm?source=ggst&cat=387247298&tpage=broadband&tkeyword=_isp''s_) & here (http://www.ispreview.co.uk/list.shtml)

[Newsreader]

I've just switched from dial-up to BB with Virgin, £19.99 a month gives you upto 8meg, no download limit (subject to fair use policy etc etc), free phone calls 24/7 to uk landlines, and Virgin TV. Seems pretty good to me :)

[mistericeman]

if youve got ntl in your area theyre pretty good ,ive got cable tv (same package as basic sky) landline ,and broadband for about £25 a month ,and its good and reliable service ,and the way competition is at the moment you can pretty much tell them that sky or whoever has offered you this or that cheaper and theyll try to better it ,either package wise or price or both

[Newsreader]

if youve got ntl in your area theyre pretty good ,
NTL is now Virgin isn't it?

[mistericeman]

it is ,some of the adverts etc on the web and stuff are still for ntl tho ,you just get redirected ,but good old richard branson ehhh ,good /cheep/reliable service

[timbott]

I use BT, offering up to 8mb, but never get anywhere near that and I don't know anyone who does from any supplier offering the same. Note the use of the words "up to":rolleyes:

Test your actual speed here http://www.speedtest.net/ I am only running at just over 2mb:(

cheers, Tim

[Satancom]

Im on some screwed up package with Virgin at the moment where they are paying me £2 a month :D

Not sure what the package is called but im keeping quiet ;)

[baz]

Im on some screwed up package with Virgin at the moment where they are paying me £2 a month :D

Not sure what the package is called but im keeping quiet ;)

:eek: no wonder my bonus was crap this year.

Whoever offers "up to 8 meg" the problem will be the same. The actual wire that goes from the exchange to your house is still BT owned and still old. Switching providers cannot change this. The different BB providers on ADSL mostly don't have their own exchange equipment either, so it's the same BT equipment too. So look at the overall package and don't get all geeky about speed you don't really need it.
Speed test sites are seldom accurate. Most of them cannot operate properly at speeds above 4 Meg and the techniques they use are crude or obsolete.

[redhand]

:eek: no wonder my bonus was crap this year.

Whoever offers "up to 8 meg" the problem will be the same. The actual wire that goes from the exchange to your house is still BT owned and still old. Switching providers cannot change this. The different BB providers on ADSL mostly don't have their own exchange equipment either, so it's the same BT equipment too. So look at the overall package and don't get all geeky about speed you don't really need it.
Speed test sites are seldom accurate. Most of them cannot operate properly at speeds above 4 Meg and the techniques they use are crude or obsolete.

Unless you Live in Hull or it's surrounding area where the telephone service is owned and run by a single supplier, Kingston Communications which used to be owned by the council, and their BB offering is Karoo. It is overpriced slow and goes on strike more often than an 80's British Leyland worker. Oh and KC are refusing to upgrade the cabling in order to make sure no one else will offer BB or telephone services in Hull. We used to have a cable TV service (Redifusion) but the council ripped all the cabling out when they went bust in order to prevent Sky or Ntl from gaining a foothold in the City. So it could be worse you could live in Hull.

[mistericeman]

thought hull was still powered by town gas :eek:,and before anybody gets the ump ,i lived there for bout 3 years and did a lot of work on ktc's aircon system ,so im almost qualified to say so lol

[redhand]

It certainly smells like it's run on some sort of gas wouldn't like to say what sort though :eek: they have a huge treadmill in the town center and everyone has to take turns on it in order to power the exchange.

[mistericeman]

nahhhh thats just the smell from the shopping mall thats built over the outfall from the town sewers ,thats actually higher than the high tide level ..............nice :D

[redhand]

Nah your out of date. Sewer outfall is now at hedon about 12 miles from hull. and it's below the high water mark as is most of hull. It's the reason why it flooded so badly this year. At high tide all rainwater has to be pumped out of the drainage channels and ditches or left in until the low tide unfortunately there was too much water for the drains to cope with and we didn't have enough pumps to cope with the amount of water.